


Danzo's Stories

by Skeren



Series: World Glimpses [10]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Amnesia, Blame my tumblr friends, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Letters, M/M, Time Loop, Way too many deathfics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 11:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 24
Words: 13,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6114540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the smaller stories posted to my konohawarhawk tumblr moved over here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Much Darker Naruto

**Author's Note:**

> The stories in here were all written and posted between the summer of 2013 and the Autumn of 2015.
> 
> Konohawarhawk was created as a Danzo roleplay account, so many stories in this collection might be colored by those storylines.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fairytale wherein Naruto seeks the monster in the dark.

Once upon a time, there was a man who walked in darkness, turning from the light as his dearest friend stole all that was precious from his fingers over the slow tick of years, until one day he walked deep into a dark, old forest and was not seen again. The heart of this forest was one which no one ever dared venture into after, because from that day forward, any who tried came out changed, their emotions torn from them and their spirits crushed. These people became the protectors of the Village that rested near the dark, frightful forest, and would come from the ground in the night to steal away those who had done those of the village harm. Thus, these people became known as Roots, and many wondered over who might be their master.

It was a mystery that had lost the village many children, but one child, an outcast who had strange eyes as compared to those of his father, and too much power for any to be willing to trust, thought that perhaps this would not be so bad. Would the master of the forest, that man who was said to strip people of their emotions, would he take him in and teach him? Would he leave the boy, blond and so weary of being hurt and tossed aside by the villagers, intact? Or would he do as he had done to so many and strip the emotions from him? Would he give him the relief of no longer hurting and hating?

Thus, the boy set out on his voyage, bid good riddance by all those who he left behind as he stepped further and further into the darkness of the trees until no light could be seen through the thick canopy, and nothing green grew on the ground. It was a beautiful forest, and would have been more so had the ancient trees not killed all that lay beneath them, and it was only hours before the boy became hungry and started to eat those items in his pack. 

_This voyage will be long…_ he thought to himself, and thus took care to not eat all his food too quickly.

Unfortunately, the boy was young, and the young do not think as clearly as they should. He did not count the time between his snacking, and he had no light to tell him, thus it was that within a day he had consumed it all, leaving nothing for the next, nor the day after that. 

It was only on the third day with nothing that there was finally a light in the forest, searing too sensitive eyes as the boy, already so tired, fell to his knees. He had found the man at the heart of the forest, that man who still protected what was dear to him though it had been taken away…

And this man moved from his small cottage, silent on the path until he came before him, staring down at him with mismatched eyes and holding out his hand. “Come.”

And so the boy did, and if he was stripped of his emotions or not… it was never certain, but the child grew into a man, and was a ghost to the village, a haunting that became one of those among the Root and stole away those who did wrong. 

However, unlike the faceless, colorless others… he laughed, and the villagers knew to fear, for that laugh…

That laugh was a terrible, happy laugh that meant bloodshed.

Thus, it was, because once upon a time, and eventually, once again.


	2. The Great Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fairytale wherein the Kyuubi plays a game.

Once upon a time, there was a great fox that lay curled sleeping at the base of a mountain. This fox, who was but known as Kyuubi for his many tails, had slept and slept for more than one age, and had been thought to be something other than a living, breathing creature.

And then, one day, a fool decided it was time to rouse the great fox and started to pluck his mighty whiskers one by one. 

It was no surprise that the Kyuubi, as he was known, rose in a fury, swiping at the fool and blinded by the many years in which he had not opened his eyes. It led to horrible destruction, his shrine being mangled and many dying, before finally he stilled, confused at all that lay around him.

It made him bitter, thinking that humans would do such things and surround him with such filth, so he left the place of his sleep, making his way through forests and stepping daintily over streams, until finally he was alone in a beautiful glade. The thought was there that perhaps he could rest again, but after so long, the great fox had no desire for rest, and instead thought of a game. 

It was a game that started an odd sort of friendship, for he first took the form of a young boy, then a young man, and he went and pestered the youths of the village nearest his new home, playing with feelings and twisting them up about one another… but one boy would not play.

Instead, that boy grew, watchful and frustratingly beyond the Great Fox’s manipulations, and finally, after years of this, the magical being turned away in frustrated respect. What he did not realize, however, was that while he had been watching, so too had the man been waiting, and this was exactly what he had been waiting for. 

He followed the fox, on the day that goodbyes were made with the strong hint that they were for good, and there was a vindication in seeing the young man, seemingly his age, return to his true form, unknowing of his watcher. Unlike in many tales, the youth didn’t return to the village immediately with the news. He didn’t form a hunting party to take that great pelt, or anything else of the kind.

No, instead he moved forward on deliberate feet, hidden until he could stare up into the face of the great fox. There was much that could have been said on that day that went unspoken, and instead, there was a single inclination of that great head, and the briefest of rare smiles from the young man before they parted ways.

And if the Great Fox happened to have left a fine picture of himself with something other than Kyuubi or Great Fox as a name… 

Then at the very least there was an understanding, and the youth would keep it to himself. 

After all, if he did anything else, he would never come _back._


	3. Sakura Stories, Fairytale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fairytale wherein Sakura chases a shadow.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. This girl was one who did not see how beautiful she was, instead having a focus on the flaws that the critical and jealous would inflict upon her. Over time, this girl grew into a maiden, and then into a mighty warrior for her village, striding through the streets with her head held high and a smile on her lips.

She had turned away from the path of the maid, due to those murmurs, those critiques, but it had made her strong, powerful, and she was someone that others could fear. She was also wise, having learned medicine to help her fellow guardians, and it was this medicine that brought her to the man that ended up fascinating her.

He, unlike she, only had one remarkable feature, and that was his eyes, sharp, watchful eyes that barely tracked a thing when she found him, crumpled well beyond the walls of the village that she knew so well. And the people that he obviously wasn’t part of by her eyes. 

He hadn’t let her help him. 

If anything, her presence seemed to have spurred him to a state of awareness, alertness, and before she could get close enough to do anything at all, he’d sprung to his feet, backing away from her and vanishing amid the trees. 

After that day, the girl started to catch glimpses of him, in the town, in the forests, on the battlefield, but no one she asked ever recalled seeing him, and even her describing his eyes, and his scar, did nothing to trigger memories at all.

So it continued for weeks, then months, then finally years, and the girl, now woman, started to doubt that the man was real at all, instead thinking perhaps she was chasing a spirit, or a shadow. Thus, she put him out of her mind, turning her attention to others, to build a life for herself that did not involve a shadow that had never spoken to her.

It was after a year of peace, of not searching, that of course the man emerged, showing up in her home in the dead of the night while she slept. He did not, however, wake her, instead helping himself to things to patch his wounds, which bled freely all over her floor.

She had only woken for water.

However, on seeing her shadow, she darted forward, unwilling to give him the chance to run, and angry that he would dare use her things without waking her so that she could do it properly. But… she had been wrong. 

He was tangible, solid as any other man, and that was his downfall.

After all, she was a very determined woman, was that beautiful girl, and she had chased this man for years.

Suffice to say, she never let him leave her to fade into the trees ever again.


	4. Sakura Stories, Misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sakura dies.

Unfair, pointless, futile, infuriating… They were all words that crossed his mind as he tried to staunch the huge amount of blood that the girl was losing. Nothing was working, there were too many wounds, the explosion had been too thorough on the damage. It didn’t help she was exhausted, that she couldn’t help him and was growing weaker by the moment either.

“If you have anything left you have to use it Sakura.” It was a fierce murmur, but… there was no reaction, no reply. And when he looked from his hands back to her face, he saw her eyes had fallen closed and a sad smile had touched her lips.

He really had no desire to believe her dead, but when it slowly registered there was no more breathing… his tone was a low, angry and miserable whisper. “Damn you. You never _listen.”_


	5. Favorites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sai dies.

Somehow, with all the boy’s questions when reporting in, and the way he’d taken to looking after the Kyuubi boy with awe and curiosity, he’d thought he’d lost the child. He’d genuinely believed that the boy had decided to move on from him and his archaic teachings, but that didn’t seem to be the case. If it had been, there would have been hesitation in getting between him and his attacker, in taking said attacker down…

But that didn’t happen. Instead, his artist had used a chakra heavy attack, taken down the boy, and all these shinobi these days were so _young,_ and gotten fatally wounded for his efforts.

Danzo could have done many things for this gift, when the boy had stumbled back against him while watching the enemy fall. He could have pushed him off, or put him out of his misery more quickly. Instead, he sank back to the grass and let the bleeding form sprawl over his lap. He was even so courteous as to gently tip the boy’s lolling head so that they could see one another as the last of the child’s energy started to burn out of him.

“You did well.” He brushed his fingertips over the boy’s cheek, shy of prompting him to close his eyes. “I would have let you keep the name.”

The smile, not one of the fake ones, but one of the very tiny, grateful ones instead, made Danzo smile back, though his own was sad. And then the boy was gone. It hurt, in a way losing many of the others would not have but… that’s what happened, when he got attached.

This was why Danzo didn’t dare have favorites.


	6. Final Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Torifu dies.

Of all things to have to deal with, a teammate dying before his time was most likely the worst option. He’d always thought that was the most painful way a teammate could go, as Kagami had vividly illustrated many years before when the wars had taken him from them.

He was wrong.

This, the aftermath of the Kyuubi, with people in the hospital, in the tents where overflow had to go because it couldn’t go anywhere else, it was worse. And still worse was the people who weren’t going to make it there.

This was one of those. His teammate was one of those. He only had one of his squadmates left, so losing the man when they’d grown so old together was unthinkable. It was stupid and foolish of the man, to have thrown himself at the Kyuubi as he had, to have gotten such severe burns that his breathing was coming in fits and starts…

But the man was an Akimichi. Even if he might not have been as warm as his clanmates, he was still one of them, and protecting others was what they did. Obviously the man, older and barely clinging to his prime, had felt the urge to heed those instincts for the good of the village. Even Danzo had done the same, so he couldn’t blame him…

But he still didn’t like it, didn’t like that it hurt, knowing that the man, his… his dear subordinate, wouldn’t make it. He was going as fast as he could, the man’s arm over his shoulder as he more dragged him than walked him, but it wouldn’t be enough.

And finally, he heeded the man shaking his head, the way his lips were pressed tight against pain and who knew what thoughts, and he sank them to the ground. There were no humorous declarations at that, no real final words, from either of them.

Instead, he just got a thin, knowing smile, and gave a stern, unhappy look in turn. That was the closest thing to final words as he got from his friend, and when a quick look showed him that staying would do nothing, that there was no one close enough to revive him… he gently stretched his friend out, then moved back into the wreckage to hunt for someone, anyone, he could save.


	7. Tagalong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Hashirama dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People all gave me death prompts at once in case anyone was wondering.

They were fighting again. Madara-sensei and Hashirama-sama did that over and over and over again and it made his heart ache. It was, he still believed somewhere deep inside, in spite of every assurance that Hashirama-sama had given him, his fault. He had somehow been the pin that had been pulled. He knew it, even years later, at almost ten years old, after he’d seen Hashirama-sama head away from the village in another fight.

Usually, he didn’t follow, but this time… this time was different. This time, Tobirama-sensei hadn’t listened to his brother and had taken off after him, leaving the village to Mito-sama instead. And that was wrong. That wasn’t the normal way of it at all. So he followed. He was slow, though, compared to those men. He was no god among shinobi, no legend in the making. He was just Shimura Danzo. So he was slow. He didn’t see what happened, didn’t understand what had transpired, but he knew it was terrible.

He knew it was terrible as Tobirama-sensei and Madara-sensei, though he should have stopped thinking of the man that way years ago, fought and Hashirama-sama… wasn’t. He was down. He’d never seen the man fall in battle so he didn’t watch the fight, suddenly afraid because this was all wrong and different and not at all as it should be.

He hit his knees beside the man and realized quickly that his meager first aid skills would not be enough. The man, _Hashirama-sama,_ was bleeding from under his armor. He was bleeding and Danzo couldn’t get the blood-tacky clasps undone quickly enough to apply direct pressure.

So he apologized, he said how very sorry he was that he was so clumsy and slow, and it only made him try harder when the man just told him it was alright. Kept saying it was even as his breathing tried to stutter to a stop and Danzo searched with seeming futility, unable to find the wound.

He didn’t even know he was sobbing when his Sensei, his only sensei left now, pulled him away to look for himself, to determine that Hashirama-sama had really died. He just knew that his hands were covered in the man’s blood and he’d failed to help him at all, no matter how hard he’d tried.


	8. Noticed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Itachi dies.

They’d found out that Itachi was doing more than just ferrying information between the sides. It wouldn’t have been so bad, if it had just been the finding out, if it had been from a quarter that had understood that such a situation needed to be in place. Someone who wasn’t unaware of the situation and jittery from the nerves of being strung tighter than a drum in anticipation of plans they thought were secret.

So they’d stabbed the boy.

If it hadn’t surprised Itachi, it would have been better. If the boy hadn’t fled, he might not have bled so quickly or so much, but by the time he managed to get away from his pursuer, the boy was breathing blood on every breath, and was stumbling more than walking.

They hadn’t been in the village at the time of the attack. They’d been on their way back, in fact, and had been much too far for the boy to manage to get to a medic quickly enough. And the first person he found upon reaching the outermost boundaries had not been a medic. It had been Danzo, practicing some simple forms after a long day of fighting with paperwork that was purely a stalling tactic. He wasn’t expecting a wounded child to stumble into his line of vision and fall. He wasn’t expecting to need to save someone’s life.

Nor was he expecting a relieved, softly toned ‘Danzo-sama’ to reach his ears as he’d hurried to collect the child, feeling the warmth of blood soaking through his clothes.

Then, he ran.

He moved as quickly as he knew how, but it was still too slow, because the boy had been on his last breath, had probably used his last breath to say his name. But he’d had to try, because the child deserved that.

He was too late, but the child had earned that much from him, even if he could do nothing else.


	9. Peaceful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different Hashirama death.

He’d never really gotten over his crush on Hashirama. The man had stepped down as Hokage, and two more had followed, but perhaps it was simply that he’d been unwilling to direct his attentions to anyone else, and that meant that the first crush was the only crush, at least, the only one that had really taken hold on him. It didn’t matter that the man had married, had a family, who had a family, the affection was still there.

But it was at a distance, after all, the man did have a family now, and it was long in the past. He’d thought so at least.

That didn’t explain this situation, though. The man was always cuddly, had been cuddly every time he’d seen him just about always, but this was different, somehow. The man had gotten older, true, but still looked young for his age by far, and it confused him how the man seemed to just have settled against his side where he’d been mid-note on his flute, completely unannounced.

He knew the man’s wife was visiting her home village, and that might explain... part of this. When the man prompted him to resume playing with a gesture of his hand, he turned his head, staring at him intently.

“Hashirama-sama, I need both hands to play.” He spoke more gently than he would to someone else, he knew it, but it was hard to be mean to Hashirama, and it always had been. Unlike essentially everyone else.

Sighing, the man gave him a rueful smile and then apparently decided his lap was a better place to be. That, of course, wasn’t what he expected at all, and it further stalled Danzo from playing when Hashirama gestured, again, for him to resume. Finally, though, after a long moment of staring at each other, he brought the instrument back to his lips to play, focusing on that instead of the warm, oddly light weight of the man resting against his legs.

As he finished the song, it occurred to him that the man, usually so chatty, hadn’t actually said a word since he’d arrived in the field with him. He’d been silent, only gesturing with his hands for him to play, and he set the flute aside, fully intending to ask him if something was on his mind.

However, when he looked down… it took a moment, but though the man seemed asleep, he could see the differences. His breathing had stopped, and his weight seemed oddly heavier now that he was looking.

He didn’t know why, or how, but it took only a moment to check and realize the simple fact of the matter. For some reason, Hashirama had come to him to die… and he didn’t know how to feel about that at all.

He did know, however, that it hurt, even if he suspected that later, much later, he might feel honored too.


	10. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Madara dies.

Uchiha Madara. It was a name that many had come to fear, and that Hashirama would come to mourn. It wasn’t a battle. It wasn’t anything that could be fixed with medical jutsu, no matter how powerful. No, it was a disease, one that ravaged its way across the Elemental Nations, striking down people at random as others found themselves immune. Others still had a resistance, and that was enough to not kill them, merely to cripple their chakra usage until the disease ran its course.

It was fast, deadly, and unpredictable. In essence, the disease was a better shinobi than those of any country, any village, and all conflict stopped as people were run ragged trying to keep their people alive. Hashirama had been at the front of this group in Konoha, and for a little while, it had seemed that all would be well and they wouldn’t lose anyone… but then Hashirama’s exhaustion had let the disease get to him and it had fallen to the younger generation to keep up the effort.

It was far less effective. People started to die without the Hokage’s efforts, and while the man himself didn’t die, his chakra was inaccessible, rendering him null in the face of this enemy. And thus, came the losses. Worse were the ones returning from the field, usually too sick to do more than stumble home, or people who had somehow avoided it altogether until they reached the village, unaware and unprepared.

It was this last category that Madara had found himself falling into, returning to find a village ill, but not aware enough of the situation to leave before being exposed, to stay out of the village and check again. Instead, he got sick. He lasted longer than most, and it looked like he might be one of the ones to recover…

But he wasn’t. It was Danzo, one of the rare ones with the immunity, and thus someone who didn’t get to sleep anymore due to tending the ill, who was there when the man got worse, and he had enough time to tell someone to send for Hashirama, to get him there.

Hashirama couldn’t do anything, true, but he suspected that the man would never forgive himself if he missed the last breaths of his friend. Hashirama was sensitive that way.

So Danzo took care, tending to the man as his breath got shallower and shallower, struggling even through the unconsciousness brought on by the fever. And when even that stopped… it was only as Hashirama passed through the doorway of the room, helped on either side by a pair of young teens who were in the same situation as he was. Danzo’s hand was resting on Madara’s chest when it stopped, a wet cloth in the other he’d been using to cool his face.

It seemed… that he’d made the right call, even if the Hokage was crumpling in a heap of coughing sobs. He’d been there.

Putting the cloth aside, he reached up and swept Madara’s eyes closed.

It even seemed the man had waited too, to die.

Only time would tell if that had been good for anyone.


	11. Damaged Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi dying another way.

In the years he’d been in Konoha, he’d seen many people come and go. He’d seen people live and die, betray and be betrayed, kill and steal and ruin. He’d seen the war-minded and yes, even pacifists like Itachi before.

But that by no means meant that Itachi was not unique. The child was persistent, needy, and far more frail than he was willing to give himself room for. The boy worked himself into exhaustion to still a mind that would not be stilled, and that in turn ground the flaw in his heart more aggressively into complications.

Chakra, both a blessing and a curse, would be the death of the boy here. If the files were correct, the boy with simple congenital heart disease, was inoperable because he had strong chakra. The chakra routed through his heart in a strange way, and a surgery would likely kill the boy instead of fixing him. So people watched, waited… then forgot.

In a way, it made sense. Over a decade of nothing, no complications, and only a lowered stamina to show for anything… of course people would write off the diagnosis as alarmist after so long of nothing wrong. But there was something wrong. Danzo had been watching, as the boy trained. He had seen how breathing had gotten harder for the youth, how he struggled to push further and longer, and in the end of it would be collapsed, clutching his shirt and struggling for air.

It wasn’t as it should be, but he seemed to be the only one not blind to the child’s frailties. Thus, when the day came that the boy’s heart decided the abuse, the avoidable abuse that meant he could have lived much longer, was too much? Danzo was there. He swept in, carefully trickling chakra into the boy, and stared into his face, reading the edge of panic there. He was no medic.

“You need the hospital boy.” The murmur was low, but the actual hint of fear he saw in reply was… strange. The boy had shown him vulnerabilities in the past, true, but this was well and beyond that.

“You can’t.” The hand not clutching his own chest then moved out, and he stared at him with eyes that were pleading, insistent, as he clutched his sleeve.

“I believe that this is not the time to argue.” Because it wasn’t. Unfortunately, even with his heart going into failure and the boy starting to cough up blood, it was clear the boy was going to fight him if he tried to pick him up. “You’re in no good state for this.”

“You _can’t.”_ The extra force of the words sent the boy into violent coughing, his breathing getting choppier as Danzo tried to make another grab for the boy, who still managed to avoid. Aggravating. “I’m fine. Just. Go. Go away.”

But he didn’t. He persisted, and the boy, ever slowing, flagging worse and worse, drew out the matter until finally, after several minutes, Danzo managed to grab him and haul him into his arms because the brat needed a _medic._ Unfortunately, by the time the boy was weak enough to grab, he was also weak enough that it seemed his body had simply decided to shut down.

Just like that.

He knew why the boy had been resisting, that he hadn’t wanted to be declared unfit for duty with his family weighing on him, but now… this wasn’t better, and he delivered the child, suddenly looking so frail and breakable, dead, to the medics.

He knew they wouldn’t be able to fix him, and he quietly cursed himself for being too slow to catch one sick teenager in timely manner.

It was a waste that really, truly, hadn’t needed to _be._


	12. The Cup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi clearly enjoys dying. And he was a Hokage this time too.

Security was an issue. Security was always an issue, and Danzo simply couldn’t understand why no one seemed to understand this. Hiruzen never listened, this boy never listened. Then again, the boy was young, not even into his twenties, so perhaps it should be expected that he would have a degree of fatal optimism. He’d seen war, he’d killed, but he’d not been crushed by subterfuge and politics. He was young to the game, not realizing that the dangers were more than passing phantoms he should watch for.

He didn’t seem to understand that not all assassination attempts would come in the form of someone sneaking into the room and trying to run him through. He didn’t grasp that summons were not the only thing he needed to keep an eye out for in unfamiliar territory and at home alike. He didn’t understand, and thus showed his youth in painful clarity. If, just once, the boy had been attacked in a showy assassination first, then all would have been well.

But Danzo hadn’t had time to arrange such a thing, to force the child to understand he was at risk and because of that so was the village. He was a symbol of Konoha’s power, after all, and his fall would be terrible, when as it was his youth was almost such to be questioned.

Instead, because Danzo had spoken first instead of acting, they’d missed something. Someone. A medic was called for immediately, of course, but by the time the tea cup fell from Itachi’s fingers, and it had to be the cup, not the tea, the child was already seizing and sliding from the chair.

He was already in distress and Danzo knew nothing of the poison, knew there was no time… so he just tried to keep his heart going, inwardly cursing the timing of this, the misfortune of the moment.

However… when it came down to it, there was nothing he could do. He didn’t work in poison, and the medic… she charged through the door minutes too late.

They had, once again, lost someone who might have grown to be a great man and Hokage.


	13. Fretting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hokage Madara is a bit hard to deal with sometimes.

Sometimes he couldn’t understand why Madara was so careless. He cared a great deal about his sensei, and it always pained him when the man did things like this to himself. He’d work too hard, too long, with his senses flung far too wide, and then he’d go and fight.

It meant that any physical injuries he picked up were compounded doubly so with the mental ones that crippled him all on their own. This time had been no different, save that he’d been debilitated after hitting the field, and then the enemy had made a move on him after. 

He’d taken it on himself to isolate his sensei to deal with one-half of the issue, and had carefully tended his wounds by hand to deal with the other half after that. It had still taken nearly two weeks for the man to be able to get back on his feet and back to work, and toward the end of it, he’d been hard pressed to keep himself calm at all times to avoid causing the same problems he was trying to fix.

It was difficult, but he didn’t regret having done so, as actually seeing Madara sleep during that timeframe, when he knew he wouldn’t die and _would_ wake, had been a relief. He wouldn’t have missed that, not when he could ease the man for once as he could this time.

He just wished the man didn’t get so prickly when he wasn’t in the best frame of mind, he really did.


	14. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amnesia can be crippling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is attached to a universe called Shadowmaster, where Danzo and Hashirama were the same age. At some point, I'll be posting that. It's over 200k words though so the editing will be... delayed.

The process of losing someone was very different when the person you lost was someone who was standing right in front of you. The ache was different, dulled with anger and hurt that felt almost like you’d been betrayed in some way, instead of the rending sorrow of death.

It was a difference he’d never had the chance to truly appreciate, before Hashirama had been hurt. Since then, it had been a nightmare, to deal with this man who seemed to be slowly remembering things in the wrong order, but none of them right, or in the correct order for them to have the proper context.

None about him at all, so far, and even Tobirama had been relegated to Hashirama’s ‘fluffy friend’. 

Sex was, of course, entirely out of the question, though Hashirama kept ending up in his bed, even without knowing who he was or being able to remember him, having said that he didn’t get nightmares when he slept in the same room as him.

The first night Hashirama had done that he’d felt like his heart was being ripped out, and he kept his silence. Every time he tried to tell him about things between them, between Hashirama and anything, the man was laid out, floored by the sheer violence of his headache in return for the efforts. 

So he waited, and he was there, doing what he could. It hurt, more and more each day as he got shy smiles that were directed without the normal love he was used to. 

He’d taken to whispering ‘you are loved’ with increasing frequency, and carefully braided his hair each morning when he had to leave the house to work on the village.

He knew Hashirama didn’t understand his sorrow, but perhaps, someday, he might. Even if he didn’t remember, didn’t ever remember, he hoped that maybe it wouldn’t come to be that he’d truly lost him after all.


	15. Progression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sai's courtship of Danzo finally gets somewhere.

When it came to sexual matters, there were many things that had passed between the two of them. He’d taught the boy to kiss, when requested, and even took steps well and truly beyond that at other times. Always, he’d waited for the youth to come to him before doing anything, as that was something that he felt could not be otherwise.

He was not the sort of man who was willing to abuse his position in that way, nor had he ever been. That did not mean that he did not take steps of his own once the path was opened, and he’d given Sai his own overtures.

This night was one of those, a day when he’d carefully placed notes for the youth to find, fully intending for him to follow one to the next and make his way to him. It had worked, and he knew he’d intrigued Sai in the process, because the nature of the notes gave hints. 

Thus, he’d fed that curiosity carefully, being more physical than was his typical wont, and the response had been favorable, highly so. That had worked slowly, but definitely toward something more, but it had been a quiet affair, much touching and little talking. It was him, finally, properly exploring the youth that had become his lover, hands careful and considering as he worked his way from shoulder to toes with touches and kisses, gently warding off a return of contact until he was satisfied with that. 

The night had progressed much in that fashion, moving from touches and kisses to the press of skin on skin, as he let Sai have his turn to have control of things, and he could not bring it from him to regret that he’d initiated this evening. 

If, perhaps, there were more than hands as well… then that was only par for the course, really.


	16. A Much Darker Naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time traveling Danzo and his complex Sakura relationship.

**Graveyard:** _My character visits the grave of yours._

Her parents had insisted on a civilian burial for her. It bothered him more than he’d ever admit that she’d been disgraced that way. She deserved to have her body protected, not preserved for vultures in later years to pick at if they realized the worth in her blood…

But that hadn’t been for him to decide, and all he could do was radiate his disapproval without saying anything whenever the matter came up, rarely though it was. No, instead of saying a word, he instead decided to take care of matters himself.

It was a simple thing, waiting until everyone had gone away, and only then did he make his way to her grave, carefully using an Earth jutsu to bring her to the surface. That paused him a moment, and he closed his eyes, pressing his lips tightly together before taking a deep breath and running his hands quickly through a jutsu.

Then he reached out and touched her cheek as her body dissolved to ashes in a spreading wave from that point.

Now, she could rest peacefully in the afterlife. Now, the respect due her had been paid. “Goodbye.”

* * *

 

 **Busted:**   _My character catches yours doing something wrong._

“Sakura… Do you have any idea how inappropriate this is?” He stared at her, somewhat appalled that she was even under the impression that this was a habit he would ever encourage her to pick up.

Giving his head a shake, he did the only thing that really came to mind. He padded over and pushed her off the perch in his window. “Use the door!”

He would not ever encourage her to think that breaking into his house, for any reason, was something that he would come to enjoy. No. In fact, it was quite, quite the opposite. He would like to know, however, just how she’d gotten through his newly upgraded level of traps…

* * *

 

 **Dominate Me:** _Something about one character dominating the other._

He’d never expected her to ask him to do this. In fact, he honestly hadn’t thought that this was something that would ever occur to her, not with how intensely positive and rosy her view on being a shinobi tended to be.

But she had, and he was very careful as he leaned down, staring into her eyes as he trailed the sharp of the blade in his fingers delicately over her collarbone.

“You’ll scar.” Considering that before they’d gotten to this point he’d carefully applied a temporary chakra seal between her shoulders, it was an understandable warning.

“I know.”

Her soft reply was resolute, and after only a smallest hesitation more, he inclined his head to her and straightened. He would find her limits, and press them hard. They’d find a way to make her feel secure from whatever terror had touched her mind, even if it was at cost of him harming her body.

She would heal, and then they would both know just how fragile her mind was, because interrogation and torture were very different beasts, but she’d insisted…

And he did have a good idea how to proceed.

He just hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

* * *

 

 **Haunt Me:** _Mine watching over yours, alive or dead._

What did someone do when they realized that something about reality had crumbled between one breath and the next?

They built a new one.

Sakura Haruno, a girl who haunted his past and was too unique to be truly real, was someone that he had carefully avoided until the day he died. She didn’t know him, he could see it in her eyes, her posture, all of it.

He’d died before she’d ever met the man he’d been, and that… was not an unacceptable position in which to be. Still, he knew she would be in the middle of everything, bothersome girl that she was, and he trailed her, watching over her as she drifted through the heartbreak of war and the triumphs that fell into place in the wake of it…

As well as the disappointments.

In fact, he stayed close for a good long while before something twisted, a jutsu hit him… and he forgot everything to become who he had been, for a little while.

And this time, when he vanished, he was truly gone, because loops only go in a circle, and cannot go forward beyond it.

* * *

 

 **Raise Me** : _My character raises yours from the dead_

He wondered if it would even work. It was a lock of hair he’d woken with twisted in his fingers, streaked in blood he’d known was hers, that had put the concept in his head, but he hadn’t immediately touched upon it. No, at first, it was simply a memento of a time that might not exist for anyone else.

And might never exist for someone else.

Still, watching his sensei fight, develop that jutsu of his that could raise the dead… it made him wonder, lit a fire in him to test, to know, because this, in a way, was not truly selfish. If it worked, then Konoha would have an ally that would not even be born for decades…

And if it failed, the only one lost would be an enemy in a war zone, nothing more. He would not try over and over, as he was no monster, but… just once.

It meant that that lock of hair was carefully crafted into the basis for an Edo Tensai he’d painstakingly learned, though when it actually worked…

He realized he really had no idea what he was actually going to get.

After all, she was from the future, wasn’t she?

* * *

 

 **Drink:** _My character drunkenly visits yours._

He tended to stay out of his cups, normally, at least, in any way that would leave him in a largely inebriated state, but tonight had simply not been one of those nights. He’d found out the proper details of why Tsunade was Hokage, and he had decided that the best way to handle grief was going on a drinking binge.

Were he older, he wouldn’t do something so stupid, but he wasn’t that old, not yet, and he still at times let his emotions get the better of him, just for a little while.

Unfortunately, it meant that he tended to forget he was a morose drunk, and he gave it no thought at all as he made his way from the bar to Sakura’s little house, slipping up to her window and pushing it open to sit on her windowsill.

He didn’t care if it was three in the morning.

Picking up a stuffed animal, he pelted it at her, in the process of grabbing another to do so when she lifted her head to look sharply around. Ah, good.

Putting the animal down, he leaned his head on the window frame and heaved a deep, sad sigh. “Sakura, Hiruzen died.”

* * *

 

 **Jealousy:** _My character gets jealous over yours._

What. Was. She. Doing? He didn’t know what to make of it, other than to be adamantly displeased, as the pink haired woman not only got incredibly close to the object of her attention, but started to act… coy? Flirtatious?

He wasn’t sure, but he knew that it wasn’t typical for her, and would be cause more for concern if he didn’t recognize the determined glint in her eyes and the awareness in her posture. No, she was definitely doing… This... whatever this was, on purpose.

But that didn’t mean he liked it, and he didn’t hesitate to stare holes in her back until she finally came to her senses and Stopped.

Even if that… took a while.

* * *

 

 **Break Me:** _Short angsty piece about our pair_

When a person was left with the choices of home or heart, it was a very strange place. Sakura had, for some reason he would never understand, decided that going after heart was the better choice for her, and he could honestly say that he wasn’t happy with her.

They’d had to fight, and while he was an echo from the past, she was supposed to be an emblem for the future, not someone who had gone tearing off after a fool of an Uchiha whose heart was already bound to someone that she would never be. So how they came to the position they were currently in, he really didn’t know. He was straddling her, one of his hands pinning both of hers, and a kunai at her throat as he leaned low over her, staring into her wide green eyes and wondering at the wariness there.

She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to carry through. He could see it, and while he knew it to be true, he wasn’t sure what she’d experienced that would make it so for her, that would make her so still and brittle under his hands.

It was an odd trust to have. “Tell me why, Sakura.”

And when all she could give him was a sad, knowing smile, he closed his eyes and lived up to those unfortunate expectations.


	17. Sakura Stories, Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura and Danzo being young together.

Danzo was not a boy fond of the snow. He had not been a boy fond of the snow before his family had come to Konoha. He was not a boy fond of the snow now that the village was his home.

He was not fond of the snow even though Sakura had bodily dragged him outside into it. However, in light of this last point, Danzo put up with the snow.

Sakura wanted to play, and that morning meant that he would give in to her hopeful demand, and watch his gloves get soaked in the water that melted off the white fluff surrounding them to build things he didn’t much care about.

He let his nose get icy cold and put up with snow down his shirt, something which he retaliated quite insistently in kind, because Sakura wanted to have a snow fight.

He left imprints that to him look very little like angels, and felt rather cold through because of it, because she thought it would be great to leave their imprint on the snow, as though everything else they had done wouldn’t be enough. 

Above all, though, he did not like the snow. He did, however, find he liked Sakura very much, and for her, he would willingly put up with the snow on any number of days.

Of course, he wouldn’t go telling her that lest she get any ideas.


	18. An Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danzo talking to a rather deceased Kagami after he himself has died. Or rather, _at_ Kagami.

There are no words that describe how horrifying I found that particular gift from you Kagami. I have since learned and come to understand your reasoning, that you considered yourself useless alive and blind, and I have used what you taught me that day well, though a great many would disagree with the path I took in protection of our village.

Are you upset with me for the path on which I led your son? That he gave himself as you gave yourself in the end for his friend, in spite of my efforts to get him to think with more strategy and less heart? Had he but listened, things would be very different, and perhaps the Uchiha might still have been of use to Konoha instead of becoming a threat.

Hiruzen was never willing to accept my choices, to understand that we wanted the same things. Of all of us, the six that were so often teamed together, how strange is it that you and I understood one another the best? You sacrificed much for my ideals, and taught me something that in the end was, in many ways, a great waste due to the failings of another branch of your family. A child that should have been put down, or at the very least controlled, was instead encouraged to become wild and left defenseless for someone whose ideas of loyalty were well beyond twisted.

I made mistakes in my life. I do not regret them, and I believe that they are not things that I would change having done. I would simply do them differently, with hopes that I would do them better and Konoha would suffer less in the way of losses. Small choices were those that failed me. How I approached your child was among them, and it led to the day where he simply had no choice but to sacrifice himself.

I was a villain in that story, and I do not care. Being a villain is better than having done nothing. However, we’re both dead now, and your gifts, while given in the true spirit of a Konoha shinobi, have not reached the same ends as your goals had desired they would.

So tell me Kagami, do you regret, or do you feel that on the day you died, that you made the right choices, and that you chose the correct person to believe in for the future of the village and your child?

That you picked someone who would resent the rest of your family as undisciplined fools will never fail to confuse me… but there is little you did that ever made sense to me, so this is well within reason and standard. There are times when I believe that had you lived, had you not been so loyal to me on your final day, that the world would have changed.

Those times are fleeting.

You were always a follower Kagami, and we both know this, but you were exemplary, for a time, and you inspired things that I perhaps had never considered before you offered them to me.

How unfortunate it is, then, that no one else could see the vision that you saw lay with me. No others would see the goal as being united as a worthy one until after my demise, and while my methods were cold and sharp, that does not make the desire any different than the alliance that sprung up in the wake my being lost.

I saw it, for but a handful of moments Kagami, that united world. Then a brat ripped it away and burned through the final thing you taught me, intent on vengeance for something that he should not have known. I thought better of the boy he was avenging.

I thought he was like you.

It seems, however, that I was wrong, and while he had your devotion to the village, that person who he trusted with his future was simply a young fool, the same that had been left to rot from the inside because Hiruzen tied my hands. I would have shaped the child, given the chance. I would have taken both he and the jinchuuriki you never met and made them exemplary…

But Konoha had grown soft and blind under Hiruzen’s hands. He bowed to my choice for the Uchiha, because he saw what his complacency had done, but it was too little, too late, and more than beyond a waste of those who could have been better used, and better controlled.

Somewhere along the way, I think that people came to believe that I hated the Uchiha. I did not.

I merely believed that they were not used well, and that they could have been made content with their situation had things been approached properly.

After all, they were a gem in Konoha’s crown, powerful, talented… but unstable. In need of firm steady guidance that Hiruzen never allowed.

So would you forgive me Kagami, for the things I have done to your family and do not regret?

Or do you, as you once did, still understand and thus forgiveness is pointless?


	19. Experiences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danzo's experiences with the people around him left something to be desired.

**Pretense**

While Danzo had never held any love for the Uchiha clan, neither had he held them in hate. Many ways in which he’d presented himself over the years may call to the contrary, but one point stood unwavering. A tool was a tool, and it was only ever likely to turn on its handler if used poorly, just as it would only grow weak through lack of care. 

The Uchiha had been mishandled, and they had been ill cared for. It was something that he rightly blamed Hiruzen for. Yes, the Nidaime had made his mistakes, but he’d also been incredibly careful to make sure that the clan felt that they had a use, a reason to care.

Hiruzen utterly failed to take further steps to maintain this momentum and gently fold the Uchiha under the total control of the Hokage so that they wouldn’t end up feeling maligned, and their devotions would go to those beyond their clan members. He’d seen it collapse in on himself. Even down to the last child that they had to do so with, and Hiruzen had failed to take their uniqueness into account even then.

Thus, Danzo had quietly resented the lost chances, and worked carefully within his constraints, forming a very carefully chosen selection of operatives which he used to monitor the situation and level of trouble inside the village, as well as counter it where needed. He made sure to never drop the ball on his self-appointed task, once Hiruzen decided he didn’t need to do it anymore that is, and took care not to let on just how angry it made him. 

Because that would be even less helpful, and Danzo did his very best to make sure that he always came across as helpful. Helpful people, after all, got what they wanted done, done.

* * *

**Impression**

Danzo had not been impressed with Kagami when they’d first met. In fact, he’d thought he was a bit stupid and had been uncertain where the Uchiha reputation for brilliance could possibly have come from. He’d been genuinely appalled at the low standards, and that somehow, he was in charge of making this person into some kind of workable ally. 

Then, he’d seen him fight, and he’d realized that his first impression had been a little harsh. He was, after all, someone that he could fight beside and not fear for the life of. Once he learned to trust him that is. 

Torifu, on the other hand, had initially struck him as clumsy. He’d given off the air of someone who wasn’t used to being in his own skin, likely due to being the first on the team to really start into their growth spurts at the age they’d met. He’d been serious though, focused, and Danzo had respected that, even if he had no idea what he could possibly do with him in battle at the time either.

It had been a happy surprise that the Akimichi had actually had something of a tactical mind. So yes, while at first he hadn’t had the compensation for growing into himself, he had had the mind to make up for it, and Danzo would forever appreciate a good mind.

So initially, Danzo’s impression of his team was that he’d been handed fools and those who couldn’t fight. By the time they’d been through their first proper mission, however, Danzo had decided that between he and Hiruzen, he’d gotten the better team, and he forever regretted the day that had been broken.

If they’d stayed intact, he didn’t doubt that things would have gone differently.

* * *

**Critic**

Danzo was very careful in how he trained his recruits. He picked children he saw something in that would add to the well being of Konoha, and he encouraged their strengths until they were refined and deadly weapons that would make exquisite guardians for the village.

Sometimes, his picks took a bad turn. This was also, in many ways, a good thing. It meant that there was no waste if things went poorly, that if he needed to get rid of them quietly, that there was an open avenue to do so. Of course, the children never realized this. Not everyone took that ‘test’, and he was always careful to pair the children in such a way that the one he favored would win.

If someone was sickly, he wasn’t oblivious, and he wasn’t so cruel as to stretch an illness past the point of a merciful end. The problem was that these methods were rife with head games and he was forever judging. Who would actually kill their paired partner? Who wouldn’t? 

Who wouldn’t want to but would pretend they had if given opportunity? More than once he put a seal on a sleeping child, letting them think they were destroying their dear friend with their own hands, when it wasn’t that person at all. At that point, he’d take care to keep the two apart from that point on, in instances where he wouldn’t want either dead, and it worked well for him.

In cases where this failed him, few though they were, he worked with the child to bring them to heel, finding other ways to shape them into his creature, and all of it, every step, was a series of careful judgments, critical watching as he considered his options.

This was ROOT. This was his army of guardians, and flaws would not be tolerated.


	20. Sensei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tobirama did well as a teacher. Mostly.

Every time we fought together it was an interesting situation. Hiruzen would lead the charge even when it wasn’t the wisest thing, while I would guard his back. Tobirama would ensure that neither of us got ourselves killed while keeping an eye on our four teammates to make sure that they, as well, were fine in their respective mingling.

It made me respect the man as a teacher, and as a leader of my unit, because he let us play to our strengths while making sure that none of us ever got lost in battle. I can only wonder at how he felt about the way Hiruzen and I strove against each other when in battle we were so flawless, but he was not the sort of man that such things could be asked of freely.

Instead, we were a Unit, the seven of us, on those rare occasions that the two teams would be out together at all. Usually, it was for a big battle, or for something that needed a group that worked well together but was too much for a single squad to take care of. In some ways, I still miss those opportunities, before our teacher turned his full attention to Hiruzen’s team alone, then Hiruzen only in the man’s training to be Hokage after him.

It made me wonder if had that not occurred, that perhaps Kagami’s passing might not have either, but it’s something I do not dwell on. Far more is the fact that a second of hesitation is what cost me this special regard, and it is a regret, a moment of wondering, that I will carry with me always.

Was the choice made before that day, or had I simply missed my chance?

In the end, it didn’t matter, because done was done, but that has never stopped one from wondering.


	21. An Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danzo believes in the arts, and once unwittingly inspired Orochimaru to do the same.

In later years, people would only see Danzo for his warlike tendencies and little else. They would neglect the consideration that his best-known operative was an artist, and that he had made no moves to dissuade the child from being one. He saw the value in art, and always had.

Art meant creativity. Creativity was flexibility. Flexibility was survival.

In many ways, an artist was someone he could best respect as a shinobi, because so long as they didn’t close themselves in behind their chosen medium and see no other options, the very act of creating and striving would forever make one a better shinobi. It would make them see possibilities that others ignored. It would leave them watchful for details in ways others never were.

In essence, the very spirit of someone with some art was the spirit of someone who could bend and change and not shatter under the weight of something that they did not understand. This was a matter that led him to pick up the flute as a child, urged to find something outside the shinobi arts to strive towards by his father, though he knew not why at the time.

His downfall, if asked, would have come when he decided that he no longer needed to play. When he was younger, however, this was still something he would do regularly, finding places and time to simply experiment with the notes, using it as a reprieve from other duties. He had never desired to turn it into a weapon, though he easily could have.

In fact, on one occasion, when faced with Hiruzen’s young Wind user, he’d explained the fine details of exactly what conclusions he’d come to on that very topic after the boy had asked him why music. What worth was there in a flute? There was no harm in explaining, then, though how it was later used…

There was no actual regret in having shared that information, for though the boy had grown into someone who would attack Konoha, he knew that the losses could have been attained very differently. That day had been the child showing off, nothing more.

However, after that initial talk, he’d seen the boy around, now and then, sitting in listening distance with a scroll, or practicing some taijutsu move far too close to be any sort of coincidence. It had amused him, seeing the boy clearly intent on listening to him play, but he had never shooed him off. After all, flexibility of the mind was something to be encouraged in a Konoha shinobi, was it not?

No matter the cause, or the reasoning, however, of his desire to play, people tended to forget that he’d ever had the skill at all.

It was a shame, but if no one had been observant enough to notice, then that was hardly any concern of his in the end, now was it?


	22. Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danzo always looks to the future.

**Judgment**

There are many who wouldn’t agree with what he’d done. He’d consigned an entire clan to death, to never again being seen or known as a pride in Konoha’s hands, and he’d done it by way of a young boy with ideals that he wished could be achieved in his lifetime. He respected that boy, and that is why he gave him a chance, a choice, instead of sending in his ROOT to do the deed instead.

He chose to let the boy have his mercy, his chance to save the reputation of his family or die with them, the chance to kill them quickly and quietly instead of subjecting them to torture and interrogation as a whole, with their children fostered out and taken from them to be raised by better hands. He had chosen to let the boy decide if his family would die together as a family or be ripped apart like so many useful trinkets that were being appropriated for better usage. 

The boy had seen his options, understood them, and acted on them as a good shinobi should. 

So yes, he had pulled the decision out of Hiruzen’s hands, and yes, he had acted with decisive force to seal a wound that would but fester as his lance had not been up to the task of draining away it’s vicious rot. It had been, and always would be, a judgment, something he had chosen and had not regretted. 

However, people would always overlook the parts it made them uncomfortable to see, and the fact that he could have done things far more terrible than simply having them killed, by one who would be gentle no less, was one of those things that people would choose to close their eyes against.

But, such was the life of one who lived in the shadows. They were not meant to be seen for their mercy, and they would never be known for what they might have done.

* * *

**Morality**

Why had he helped Hanzo? It was a question that even years later, Danzo knew that many simply would not understand. Why had he helped destroy a group of children that wanted nothing more than to bring their country to peace? Why had he sided with someone who was terrible and cruel over the idealist?

Because it would have been bad, had it gone any other way. Jiraiya, sincere, misguided Jiraiya had left part of Konoha’s legacy with those children. It may have been a small, seemingly inconsequential thing, but he had trained them, and nurtured them, and lit within them the Will of Fire that so defined Konoha. 

He had made them a potential threat, as well as a potential asset at the same time. He could have brought them home, taken that idealistic vision that he no doubt instilled them with, and turned them into some of Konoha’s finest shinobi. Instead, he was irresponsible and abandoned them, left them stewing in their ideals and self-righteousness in a way that had led to their downfall.

Jiraiya had not done enough for those children, but he had done too much to leave them alone. He would, even, have stayed out of the matter himself, watched it from the outside, but he had been contacted by the person that had spared three of Konoha’s finest, letting them go and showing mercy where it was not due. Danzo knew when a debt was owed, and this was one such case. 

So he did not go eagerly onto that battleground, and he did not approve… but he had seen the look on Jiraiya’s youngest student’s face. He had seen the way that blood shaded child had really seen Hanzo. And thus, his guilt, what little there was, had been assuaged. Hanzo would fall, and Ame would, in turn, not be a threat for a very long time.

One life for many, and it was a trade he would accept every time.

* * *

**Alliance**

Hiruzen was not so indulgent as people seemed to think he was. He was not so sweet or kind, and his views did not truly drift as far from Danzo’s as they might often seem. It was true, their vision was not the same, that Hiruzen preferred peace to war, and inaction to proaction, but in the end, they needed one another.

Hiruzen needed his hands, his willingness to do terrible things and stand in his shadow. He needed that person who would shoulder the blame and carry his misdeeds, and who would say what was being thought but would never actually fit the image of kindly Hokage. Hiruzen’s reign was long, but he had not been alone, and while Danzo felt that he had never quite reached the other man’s level, had never managed to stand in the light instead of in Hiruzen’s shadow, that did not mean that he had not done much for his home.

Hiruzen had not tied his hands. He could have, on many occasions, made his goals impossible to reach. He could have ensured that after the formal disbandment that ROOT could no longer exist. He could have made it so that Danzo had no room in which to maneuver. Instead, he had trusted his judgment, closing his eyes and turning away to let him do as he would to defend Konoha, to maintain the peace that Hiruzen made look so flawless.

While Danzo put terror behind the name of Konoha, Hiruzen layered it in softness and a reputation of forgiveness. While Danzo guarded and was pro-active to threats, Hiruzen threw the gates wide and invited people to come and make Konoha their home from beyond the village walls. While Danzo supported from below, Hiruzen balanced above, and for many years, it worked well. 

It tipped, and wavered badly, when Minato stepped in place of Hiruzen, but Minato understood sacrifice, was someone known to be terrible all on his own, so he had not needed to step in and offer his help, not then. And then the boy had fallen, and Hiruzen had tried to follow that youthful, shining example. It had not worked, and the balance was badly shaken, though still intact.

Until Hiruzen died. Tsunade didn’t understand, wouldn’t understand, and it was a terrible weakness that Danzo could not act more openly to guard his home. There was little else to do, however, but wait, until finally another alliance could be built.


	23. Itachi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi was like an echo.

There were those that questioned why he had poured so much faith into a little boy, a child barely a teen, when he had had other options available to him. Why had he trusted a boy to do what was right, to understand that the village needed him to do this, and to have faith that the village would win over the many that were his family?

It was not a question he’d been able to answer with the full truth. The full truth was personal, deeply so, and he wouldn’t reveal it to even Hiruzen if he were pressed. No, instead he’d given the logic answers, had pointed out the behaviors that the boy had shown that made the choice seem to have a higher sort of clarity.

He didn’t point out how, at one point when the boy first came to his attention, Shisui trailing after him like an oversized puppy, his smile had seemed just a bit too familiar. He didn’t say how the way the boy prioritized things, his willingness to put the village first, struck a cord. He didn’t bring up the fact that the child was like a ghost, the solemn shadow of someone he’d once been close to. 

Because that was not something others needed to know. It allowed him, no, encouraged him, to study the boy, to pick apart how the two were different, what made Itachi himself instead of like Kagami. It had fostered a degree of respect that the child was likely to never know was ever there, and he’d certainly never told him.

It allowed him to trust the child, because his choice had a basis deep in intense observation, and tinged with wishful thinking for something that never would actually be so. The living were the living, and the dead were the dead.

Just because one had faded before the other came to light doesn’t matter, they were still separate… or as separate as he’d been able to make them be when the child had pressed hard on a soft spot he’d thought long closed away.

Thus, he’d given the child a terrible deed he’d known he would follow, and he’d given the boy, as well, a promise that he’d fully intended to keep, an odd echo of another promise he had once made. And with that, he had managed to send the child away, with his loyalty to the village and his keen eyes, where Danzo wouldn’t have to see him anymore.

It was an act for which he had no regret, for even one who worked so tirelessly for others at times needed a reprieve. If that involved hollow ringing silence… then that was his own choice, and would stay so for the rest of his years.


	24. Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letters to people Danzo was requested to write to.

Dear past me, 

You made so many mistakes. They weren’t the kind of mistakes you would have even seen as such at the time, but you didn’t know how badly you needed to look back as well as forward. You couldn’t just plan without seeing those around you, beside you, in your wake. You lost your best friend, your teammate, and the closest thing you ever had to a child that way. You sacrificed another boy you’re sure could have been great, and you helped set off what destroyed the history of Konoha and nearly decimated lives.

You were more shortsighted than you had believed yourself to be, and if you’d just asked for help, things would have gone so much better, because you weren’t alone.

But now you are.

Dearly departed,  
Danzo Shimura

* * *

Dear ~~‘dead Uchiha whom I stole the eye-‘~~ Shisui,

I’m sorry that what I did made you feel cornered into relying on the thirteen-year-old. Yes, he was a little prodigy, but no, I will never approve of the route you took. We both know the eye stealing was a last moment measure, a precaution, because you distrusted too much.

Yes, it was your distrust that caused that, your uneasiness, and unwillingness, to do as I tried to instruct you to do when you needed to do it. I won’t apologize, but I can regret. I will miss you being around, just as I miss your father. Never let it be said that I do not respect the Uchiha.

If anything, I respect them too much, and that is my failing, because I therefore expect too much, just as I did with you. You disappointed me bitterly, and in turn I’m sure I hurt you terribly, in a way that wasn’t physical at all.

I will take the blame for your hurt, but never forget that the deaths might have been avoided if you had but listened to me.

With love,  
Danzo Shimura

* * *

Dear person I’m jealous of,

No matter what I do I’ve never been able to catch up to you. I’ve always stumbled at the wrong points, or missed chances because I hesitated at the wrong time. I thought I finally finally might have caught up to you…

But I didn’t.

No one understood.

No one wanted to understand.

I’m not happy about that, but I, unlike they, understand why it happened that way. I understand that I frighten people and things I suggest would appall others.

I know that it never appalled you, no matter what your public facade. You let me do what I needed to, but you never let me catch up, and I never quite managed to be happy.

There were never any thank yous in my life, not after Kagami died… and I stopped expecting them.

That was for you. Being seen and respected was for you. Being known was for you. Being loved… was for you.

And I got what was left.

Even when you died, it just took you further from me, and called an end to the game that I believe only I ever noticed you were playing.

And now… there’s nothing.

Nothing at all.

I just hope that you at least give me a ‘well played’ when I get to you finally.

Sincerely,  
Danzo Shimura

* * *

Dear mother,

You failed me. I was only five when you died, but I have never forgotten. I may not have understood when it was happening, but your death is something that will forever affect the way I see the world. Perhaps it wasn’t your fault you died, but if it was… then I would never forgive you.

Shimura Danzo.

* * *

Dear Father,

I have nothing to say to you. You were not a person to me but a presence, a caretaker in the very loosest sense of the word. I like to believe I’ve done better with my charges than you ever did with me.

Shimura Danzo.

* * *

Dear Past Me,

I know it was terrible for your dreams to be crushed as they were, but you understood things that I lost track of in the end. I knew then that I was not nearly so important as I believed myself to be upon my death. You had not yet let age and determination get the better of you and Konoha was truly still first in your mind. This time, don’t forget that you are but a shadow, and that unhealthy roots are just as bad for the tree.

The end.

* * *

Dear Uchiha,

Why couldn’t you have been a stronger family? Why did you let your weaknesses drive you to ruin? It was a waste of people I once admired.

Shimura Danzo

* * *

Dear person I hate,

My hate for you is probably not something that most people would expect, but is grown out of a foundation of bitterness. You chose a dramatic way to die, and I don’t forgive you for the ashes you left behind you.

Your student,  
Shimura Danzo

* * *

Dear person I’m jealous of,

Of everyone, I was always the most jealous of you. Your ambitions were always small, to take care of the family, to be a good elder for them, to do your missions and be a good shinobi. I only wish that I could have been happy with such things as you were. You’re an excellent teammate, but the feeling remains all the same.

Danzo

* * *

Dear Best friend,

I don’t forgive you for leaving me behind to forge on without you, to deal with a mess of children and your irritating squad who continually made my life difficult because I wasn’t you. You didn’t have to die that day, but you picked that student of yours over Konoha.

You better have a good reason when I see you again.

Shimura Danzo

* * *

Dear ex-girlfriend,

I will never marry you nor give you children. You are not, and never were, a priority in my life, and I do not understand how you believe that I ever once would have considered you so. You were an interest and perhaps a slight fascination, but nothing more, and sooner or later, you’ll come to realize that that is all anyone will ever get from me.

Shimura Danzo

* * *

Dear ex-best friend,

You died. Why do you still claim this title with me? 

Shimura Danzo

* * *

~~Dear Mom,~~

Mother,

There are many things in my life you have missed. You did not see my greatest triumphs nor my deepest failures. I used what you and Father chose to teach me, that you found me so good at, and I did the clan name proud. I am not renown, and I am completely certain you would be proud that my name is not the one people think of when Konoha is spoken of.

I wish this was a matter that you could not be proud of, as walking in the shadows, while an honored tradition in our family, has caused nothing but grief and in my case, I once wished, and kept wishing, for something that was not this.

But, if I had the ability to do so, I would consider forgiving you. However… It is not the Shimura way to live in regret, nor to ever forget. And how can there be forgiveness if one is never permitted to truly move on and leave the past behind?

Someday, I will speak these words to you, and you will cry, I know it to be true, but on that day we will be dead. However… should I not be able to because you moved on long before ever choosing to see me again?

That, I could forgive.  
Danzo

* * *

Dear person I hate,

You know who you are, and how you’ve shaped my life. You know that I know you never cared enough to be disappointed or invested in me enough to try to be. You know that I was not sorry when you died, for all that I felt I should have held to the obligation.

You are nothing more than a title to me, empty and useless, and for that, I hate you, because you should have been my family.

Your son,  
Danzo

* * *

Dear person I’m jealous of,

I don’t understand you. With every opportunity you throw away, you send those around you deeper and deeper into a place where they have to fight to claw their way free, and you do not even care that you’re doing it. It’s such a willful blindness, your softness, and I cannot comprehend it.

I cannot understand why you would not do as you need to, why you must pretend that all would be well if you simply ignored that anything at all is wrong. You turned blind eyes and deaf ears to me when I try to make you see, and yet still, even now, even in the wake of so many terrible things, you believe that this is as it should be.

So much of what you were given has faded to dust in your hands, how could you possibly believe that all is well?

I do not understand you, and that is why.

Ever yours,  
Shimura Danzo

* * *

Dear person I hate,

There are people out there who believe that this is a long list, that I hate many and want for destruction. It’s a strange view, but I’ve hated very few people in my life. The man who failed me is one. Another is you, who, strangely, is also a man who failed me. To my eyes, it seems, failure is seen as the worst sin, the thing that I cannot stand.

Because you? You helped create hope and wonder in a boy who was slowly closing away from the world, you made him feel like he could become something unique and make a true difference to how this world was.

In the end, the boy became someone who was a shadow, who was left behind, forgotten by most and the very caricature of all he’d wanted to undo about himself. He was passed on to someone else as a student, and that someone else was not you.

No, you left without a reason that a child could understand, and that an adult cannot fathom. You left as though that boy meant nothing, and that the teaching of him had been nothing more than a flimsy game that you tired of.

But you taught him even in that, so I must thank you, even if I hate you for trying to shred the very dreams that made me into the man I turned out to be.

Danzo

* * *

Dear ex-best friend,

I doubt dear is the best word for you, as furious as you have made me in the many years you have dogged my footsteps and I have chased after yours. So many times, things would have gone better had you been willing to listen to any opinion other than your own. Had you not cast aside my faith in you when I finally found it.

It really only justified my ways, and there are still nights when I have it cross my mind, wondering at that thought. Did you, ultimately, decide to reject my friendship once I permitted you to have it because you did not want it… or because you deemed it better that I stand in a certain place in your life?

Was I too much the voice of clear thought for you?

I do not forgive you, even in your death, and I have no doubt you understand it. 

At the very least, you were always good at that, even if you always did think yourself in the right.

Danzo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, all of my reposting is _entirely caught up_.
> 
> For those of you reading along in the last couple months of updates, know that everything posted henceforth is new, or at the very least, newly edited for viewer consumption.
> 
> For new folks? I hoped you liked the glimpse into Danzo-land.


End file.
